News of the day from around the nation, Oct. 26

1University resignation: Margaret Spellings resigned Friday as president of the University of North Carolina at what was described as an emergency session of the governing board. Her resignation will take effect in March 2019. She is halfway through a five-year contract. The former U.S. education secretary for President George W. Bush took over as head of the 17-campus university system in March 2016. Some power brokers in the Republican-dominated state legislature in Raleigh saw her national reputation as allowing her too much independence.

2Offshore drilling: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has issued an executive order blocking offshore drilling, joining several other states trying to shield themselves from the Trump administration’s plan to drill for oil and gas off the U.S. coast. The order Thursday directs state agencies to protect Oregon’s coastal economy by preventing activities associated with offshore oil and gas drilling. In September, California Gov. Jerry Brown, also a Democrat, signed legislation aimed at blocking new offshore oil drilling in federal waters off the state’s coast. It bans docks, pipelines or other onshore infrastructure needed to support new offshore drilling rigs. Like other states, California can’t directly block drilling in waters controlled by the federal government but hopes to make it unprofitable.

3Missing girl: The reward for information leading to the whereabouts of 13-year-old Wisconsin girl whose parents were killed has been doubled, to $50,000, the Barron County Sheriff’s Department said Friday. Investigators have received more than 1,700 tips in the suspected abduction of Jayme Closs and killing of her parents, who were gunned down Oct. 15 in their home near Barron, a rural community about 80 miles northeast of Minneapolis.

4Durst case: New York real estate heir Robert Durst has been ordered to stand trial for the killing of his close friend in Los Angeles 18 years ago. A judge ruled Thursday that there’s enough evidence to try the eccentric 75-year-old multimillionaire for the shooting of Susan Berman in her home. Durst has pleaded not guilty. Durst allegedly killed Berman, his friend from college and the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, to keep her from telling police what she knew about his wife’s 1982 disappearance in New York. Kathleen Durst has been missing for more than 35 years and is presumed dead. Robert Durst, who has never been charged with a crime related to his wife’s disappearance, has denied killing either woman.

5Nuclear plant: Some workers at a sprawling Washington state nuclear waste site were ordered to remain indoors after steam emerged from a tunnel filled with waste that was being filled with cement. The Energy Department said Friday that there was no indication that the steam at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation contained radiation or other hazardous material and that the workers were ordered inside as a precaution. The site near Richland produced plutonium for use in nuclear weapons for decades.